This book was so deliciously good, and I've hesitated writing about it because I'm conflicted about a few things. I've thought about the book repeatedly in the past couple weeks, and had two great conversations with people about it. That's more than I think about most books I read, so in that sense, the book is a smashing success.
Little Bee is a Nigerian refugee in England who has survived through her mastery of language, and Chris Cleave has written her in a voice that rings so true* it's like you can hear her speaking. I have no idea what intelligent Nigerian refugees actually sound like, so I guess I'm trusting Mr. Cleave quite a bit here, but regardless, I loved her. When she is the narrator, the story moves along briskly with a steady stream of observations, imaginations, and remembrances. A couple of examples of things I loved:
How I would love to be a British pound. A pound is free to travel to safety, and we are free to watch it go. This is the human triumph. This is called, globalization. (p 2)And another:
On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived. (p 9)One more:
I felt my heart take off lightly like a butterfly and I thought, yes, this is it, something has survived in me, something that does not need to run anymore, because it is worth more than all the money in the world and its currency, its true home, is the living. And not just the living in this particular country or in that particular country, but the secret, irresistible heart of the living. I smiled back at Charlie and I knew that the hopes of this whole human world would fit inside one soul. This is a good trick. This is called, globalization. (p 264)The themes of globalization, money, privilege, nationalism, and home run throughout the book, and when Little Bee talks about how the flag of all refugees all over the world would be the same featureless gray, you understand how alone she is and yet also part of a community of thousands.
The alternating narrator is Sarah, an English woman who is not unlikable, and turns out to be a rather extraordinary person. The problem is that she's just not as interesting a voice as Little Bee, and I think that if she'd been the sole narrator, I probably wouldn't have liked the book at all. She's kind of dry, a little stiff. Almost uncomfortable. She's much harder to identify with.
This is the major point of ambivalence I have about the book. Chris Cleave is a British white guy and therefore culturally closer to Sarah (and me?) than to Little Bee, and so I wonder what it means that I liked Little Bee so much. Do I like her or do I like the idea of her as depicted by other white people? Because of course her wisdom, her cleverness, her personality, are all really Chris Cleave. They're who he thinks she is. How can I trust that? How much truth is there?
I talked about this book with Diana and she helped me see a few things that I think contributed to my dislike of Sarah. I couldn't figure it out before, and I think it's because of her arrogance, and how closely she held onto her naivety. At one point she did something really incredible for Little Bee, something that reveals her to be a different kind of person than we originally think she is. Then, in the second half of the book, she pretty much undoes it completely. It's almost as though even with first hand knowledge, she still can't wrap her mind around the horror of what's happening in Nigeria, the fundamental truth of Little Bee's story. In that way, she acts as a stand-in for us, the reader. Even if we do dramatic things or make sacrifices, some part of us finds it all hard to believe. We cling to our ignorance; we don't make real changes. Maybe it's Sarah as a reflection of myself that I actually dislike.
This counts toward my 100+ Challenge.
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